In today’s dynamic digital landscape, federal agencies must adopt a resilient and future-ready data foundation that can support their complex mission objectives. As agencies modernize their infrastructures, they face critical considerations in security, scalability, simplicity, and sustainability. To assist in this endeavor, we’ve outlined essential Request for Proposal (RFP) criteria that will help federal agencies select solutions that meet both their immediate needs and future objectives.
1. Unified Control and Data Plane for Operational Simplicity
Managing large datasets across distributed environments can be complex and costly, particularly for agencies that need high levels of data availability and access control. Look for a platform that offers a single control plane and data plane. This unified approach simplifies management, reduces the learning curve, and minimizes error risks by allowing administrators to oversee all data and infrastructure components from one centralized interface.
2. Comprehensive Infrastructure Orchestration and Self-Service Portal
A data platform that integrates infrastructure orchestration and management tools is essential. These tools should include:
- Observability for real-time insights into data flow and system performance.
- Alert Management to proactively address potential issues.
- Automation/Orchestration through a self-service portal that empowers teams to handle routine tasks without administrative intervention.
Such features foster operational efficiency, helping teams meet mission objectives more effectively and with fewer manual processes.
3. Enhanced Data Reliability with Dynamic Drive Protection
When it comes to federal missions, data reliability and availability is critical. Seek solutions that offer dynamic drive protection to reduce downtime and data loss. Features like distributed spare space, drive rebuild capabilities, and single drive addition ensure that any hardware failures do not disrupt services and provide the highest levels of data availability. Efficient slot utilization further maximizes storage capabilities without expanding the hardware footprint – which is often in short supply especially at branch offices or even the tactical edge.
4. Advanced Data Reduction through Hardware Offloading
Data volume continues to grow, making efficient storage management a top priority. An ideal solution should include a compression accelerator that offloads data compression tasks to hardware. This not only improves storage efficiency but also reduces the processing burden on central servers, contributing to overall system performance and cost savings.
5. Comprehensive Ransomware Protections
With cybersecurity threats on the rise, robust ransomware protections are paramount. Look for solutions that provide secure snapshots that are immutable and resistant to tampering. This creates a backup of critical data that can be restored in case of an attack, minimizing downtime and data loss. Federal agencies should also look to storage solutions certified in compliance with FIPS-140-3 meeting security requirements for cryptographic modules.
6. Flexible and Future-Ready Connectivity
Federal agencies often operate diverse legacy and modern systems, necessitating versatile connectivity. RFPs should specify the need for flexible connectivity options such as fibre channel, iSCSI, NVMe TCP SmartNIC, and NVMe Gen4 and Gen5 drive expansion. These options offer the bandwidth and performance needed for data-intensive operations, with near-cloud extension options that allow agencies to extend data assets and applications to the cloud securely and efficiently.
Additionally, federal agencies can protect their current investments by including additional years of optimized storage into their purchasing plans. Modern Storage Assurance guarantees allow buyers to add next-generation controllers to their current investments without requiring data migrations in the future – meaning less risk and a seamless upgrade path.
7. Sustainability as a Core Value
Sustainability is not just a regulatory requirement or ethical commitment – it can mean cost efficiency and increased flexibility at the edge where energy is in short supply. Today’s data foundations should offer dynamic carbon reduction features and prioritize supply chain sustainability. Certifications such as Energy Star and Carbon Footprint for Products (CFP) provide an objective measure of vendors’ claims surrounding sustainability and cut through the noise.
8. Hybrid-Cloud Ready and Multi-Protocol Support
Agencies require a flexible data foundation that can span both on-premises and cloud environments. Look for hybrid-cloud capabilities that provide multi-protocol support with secure NFS VMware datastores, LDAP netgroup scaling, and public cloud extensibility. Additionally, enterprise DevOps automation and observability features ensure that teams can monitor and manage resources effectively across on-premises and cloud deployments.
9. Built-In Cyber Resilience
Federal agencies must maintain continuous operations even in the face of cyber threats. Seek a solution that provides Denial of Service (DoS) protection, multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and extensive role-based access control (RBAC). By implementing immutable snapshots and ransomware detection, agencies can strengthen their defenses against unauthorized access and data breaches, ensuring critical data remains protected.
10. User-Friendly Management with a Modern Interface
User experience directly impacts productivity and mission outcomes. Opt for solutions that provide an intuitive HTML5-based GUI with comprehensive reporting and provisioning tools. This approach allows IT teams to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot systems with ease, reducing the need for specialized training and accelerating response times.
11. Supply Chain Independence
It has never been more critical for government organizations to evaluate their purchasing supply chains to minimize reliance on foreign adversaries. Friend-shore or domestic manufacturing should be front and center as evaluation criteria, especially when procuring mission-critical hardware, software, or operational technology. Security and fulfillment risks aside, by inspecting their procurement supply chains government agencies may prevent supporting unfair labor practices or harmful environmental practices within their supply chain.
Conclusion: Partnering for a Mission-Ready Data Foundation
Federal agencies looking to implement an optimized data foundation should prioritize solutions that balance simplicity, security, scalability and sustainability. By defining these criteria in an RFP, agencies can ensure they partner with a provider that delivers reliable, resilient, and adaptable infrastructure—positioning them for both current and future mission success.